Innovative Usage Thread

[Ryusenshi]

From a Vice article:
http://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/wx5n ... -the-cops?

Singleton wanted someone to investigate the bullet holes. Yet she had to consider the optics. Officers might look at the damage and turn to her son, who just happens to wear his hair in locs.

Emphasis mine. I'm unfamiliar with this use of the word optics. Given the context I assume it means something like "the big picture".

[LingEarth]

It means "how the situation will look to other people", the implications other people will take from the situation. Usually in terms of public image, but in this case it seems to just mean how the police will see the situation.

[Kuchigakatai]

I very much associate that use of "optics" with Twitter people, as Twitter slang. Really funny to see it in an article...

Incidentally, I once asked someone what the difference between "optics" and "aesthetics" (in its slang sense) is, and I was given the answer:

yea
"optics" is "how will this look in the press"
"aesthetics" is "how does this look on my tumblr"

I.e. the image before the public vs. the image among acquaintances in a niche...

[Pabappa]

anyone here besides me say hamburg to mean ground beef? is it a New England localism? Might it even be all traceable to a single supermarket chain that one day decided to trim its label just a tiny bit so they could make the text stand out more?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I've never heard that before; usually, the colloquial short form for me is "burger", while "Hamburg" is a city in Germany.

[Travis B.]

I've never heard that before; usually, the colloquial short form for me is "burger", while "Hamburg" is a city in Germany.

For me burger is short for hamburger the full item, whereas the meat used to make them is typically hamburger in full.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

It can also be that, yes. (Hamburger can also be the meat, that is; I wouldn't normally call the uncooked meat "burger", though I could see that happening at some point.)

[LingEarth]

anyone here besides me say hamburg to mean ground beef? is it a New England localism? Might it even be all traceable to a single supermarket chain that one day decided to trim its label just a tiny bit so they could make the text stand out more?

I'm familiar with this usage, and I'm also in New England.

[Nortaneous]

I very much associate that use of "optics" with Twitter people, as Twitter slang. Really funny to see it in an article...

it's PR jargon that escaped containment and became political extremist jargon, and journalists are both in the PR industry and an exceptionally tedious variety of political extremist

[Raholeun]

There is a common German idiom am Start sein, 'to be ready (to go)', as in 'Alex ist auch am Start'. My partner frequently uses, in both speech and writing, the variation am Startissel sein, which I took for an archaic or rustic diminutive form. Only now I realize that that is actually Startizzle with an -izzle suffix.

[Raphael]

I wanted to post this somewhere on this board, wasn't sure which thread to post it in, and eventually settled on this one:

https://twitter.com/GraceSpelman/status ... 5019998209

For those who can't or don't want to view Twitter tweets:

More: show

This weekend a 19 year old said to me, “I love when you say ‘this rules’ or ‘that rules.’ It makes you sound like a mom.” So, just wanted to give everyone else a heads up.

[Ryusenshi]

This reminds me of my first year as a teacher. It was a crash course in teenage slang.

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Unrelated: I fond it amusing how bloggers, Youtubers and the like started to call themselves "influencers". Originally it's a marketing term for the people who spread new fashions, and so are a great target for marketers (convince an influencer and you convince their followers). On some level, saying "I'm an influencer" means "I'm a shill for marketing people".

[Ares Land]

This reminds me of my first year as a teacher. It was a crash course in teenage slang.

It's not only teenagers either!

The latest thing is to use What! as an exclamation of surprise. And even six-year-olds do it. It's actually kinda cute.
(Just to be clear, these are French kids, and the English word what)
In much the same way: Mein Gott!
And believe me, you're not ready for a six years old kid just going 'Mein Gott!' completely out of the blue.

(Mein Gott? Where did they pick that one? Why not Боже мой or Christ on a cracker! while they're at it?)

[Nortaneous]

(Mein Gott? Where did they pick that one? Why not Боже мой or Christ on a cracker! while they're at it?)

my first guess would be video games, same place every where'd-they-get-that I've noticed turned out to come from. I assume it is also somewhat common for video games to have Germans in them

[quinterbeck]

Conjunction
whenever

1. At any time that.
   Visit whenever you want to.
2. Every time that.
   Whenever he has a pair of aces, his eyelids twitch.
3. (Ireland, Southern US) When.
   Whenever I was a child, I lived in Arkansas.

A while ago, I listened to a podcast where the interviewee (a woman from the american south) used the 3rd usage of whenever, which was completely novel to me. Is it completely interchangeable with when or is there still a contrast of specificity between the two?

Actual innovative usage: I heard the word 'whilever' ('while-ever'? Prosody definitely of the form of 'whatever' etc.) used in the sermon at church this morning. Context: "Paul knew that whilever God kept him here on earth, it's because he had a role to fulfil here."

[Vijay]

This reminds me of my first year as a teacher. It was a crash course in teenage slang.

It's not only teenagers either!

The latest thing is to use What! as an exclamation of surprise. And even six-year-olds do it. It's actually kinda cute.
(Just to be clear, these are French kids, and the English word what)

I don't think this is even just a French thing. I remember hearing it in this Brazilian song. (My vague understanding is that it's a kind of local meme about the supposedly correct Brazilian Portuguese word for 'cookie').

In much the same way: Mein Gott!

For some reason, this doesn't strike me as particularly weird, either. Kind of reminds me of random German lines in The Simpsons (ach du lieber! Das ist not eine boobie!).

[axolotl]

anyone here besides me say hamburg to mean ground beef? is it a New England localism? Might it even be all traceable to a single supermarket chain that one day decided to trim its label just a tiny bit so they could make the text stand out more?

Ground beef is either "ground beef" or "hamburger meat" for me.

[Otto Kretschmer]

In Polish the word what (co) is also used as an exclamation mark of surprise and has been for at least decades

[zyxw59]

Just saw someone abbreviate "once" to "1ce"

[fusijui]

anyone here besides me say hamburg to mean ground beef? is it a New England localism? Might it even be all traceable to a single supermarket chain that one day decided to trim its label just a tiny bit so they could make the text stand out more?

Ground beef is either "ground beef" or "hamburger meat" for me.

I've heard it from New Englanders (upper New Englanders, maybe), Pennsylvanians, UP'ers and a Minnesotan, and in Canada from a couple people from the Maritimes. It does feel regional to me but I can't see an obvious continuity in it.